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Ruth Butaumocho African Agenda
The effects of Covid-19 have forced organisations, communities and different cohorts to rethink how they operate, find new ways to connect employees and shift to remote work.

This has seen a massive shift to online platforms that offer video conferencing, group chats and virtual collaboration.

Covid-19 has almost grounded activities to a halt, turning human interaction into a virtual affair, while upsetting lives everywhere during a struggle against a silent enemy about which little is known.

Companies have had to use the virtual platforms to conduct business, innovate and also sell their products online to the majority who remain in lockdown as a preventative measure against Covid-19.

Even musicians are slowly adapting to the new normal by staging virtual concerts to a legions of fans across Zimbabwe and beyond.

Artistes have gone virtual to entertain their fans whilst ensuring that their products gain mileage during the lockdown that was extended indefinitely.

Brilliant concepts of streaming live from musicians being bankrolled by the likes of Nash Paints and Prophet Java have turned out to be fun-filled concerts, giving home-based fans an opportunity to watch live shows, something they might not have experienced before.

Even churches have turned to the internet to reach out to their congregants, with pastors live-streaming services in the comfort of their homes. Yes, they may have lost out on the tithes, but churches have turned to the cyberspace to reach out to their members scattered around the world.

Funerals, weddings, conferences and other important meetings and events have gone virtual, an indication that this could become the new normal, as the world battles to find a vaccine against Covid-19.

Suffice to say, while everything seems to be on a smooth journey towards development, these digital dimensions have reproduced and amplified social and economic divides.

The majority of people in the informal sector and women from disadvantaged communities are yet to migrate to e-commerce and use of other information communication technology for their daily business and social conduct.

Gender divides have become evident where the majority of women mainly in the rural and disadvantaged communities risk being left behind if necessary measures are not taken to ensure that they have access to internet and resources to match the needs.

There are reasons to worry.

The gender digital gap in Zimbabwe and on the African continent more broadly is widening, with women having lower digital literacy, less access to internet-based technologies, and less relevant content that speaks to their needs in the informal set up that they find themselves in.

In addition, due to the burden of care and domestic duties that the majority of women tend to carry on top of their paid work, they have less time to undertake further education and training, dwindling their prospects of boosting their digital skills.

The same fate has also adversely numbed the informal traders, who are yet to be released for business as the Government takes a cautionary approach to ensure that preventative measures against Covid-19 are adhered to.

With the country under indefinite lockdown, the informal sector would now need to utilise the internet and practise e-commerce to give leverage to their varying businesses during this time. The state that the country finds itself in, calls for the informal sector to innovate and save their business from collapse.

With no saved funds, proper business models and unemployment assistance, majority of businesses in the informal sector runs the total collapse, unless owners innovate and utilise e-commerce.

For the first time since 1998, the World Bank says global poverty rates are forecast to rise. By the end of the year, half a billion people may be pushed into destitution, according to the United Nations.

The two institutions identified the informal sector, which employs two billion in the sub-Saharan sector and South Asia, as under threat of collapse, pushing many into poverty.

The informal sector has no access to unemployment assistance, health care and solid funds they can use to hedge their businesses against or to resuscitate their projects in the event of economic crisis of any sort.

In a virtual meeting this week, Women Coalition of Zimbabwe, called on “informal traders to adapt working online and selling their products online so that they can sustain their businesses especially now during Covid-19 pandemic lockdown”.

Migrating to e-commerce should not pose serious challenges to informal sectors because the country already has infrastructure and facilities that the majority of people informally employed can utilise.

In preparing the nation for the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a few years ago, the Government set up community information centres throughout the country.

The facilities can now be spruced and retooled to meet the growing demand for internet usage particularly for the informal sector.

When they were established the overall aim of the centres was to ensure equitable access to information, thereby bridge the digital divide between urban and rural communities.

Because of the manner they were designed, these centres were equipped with ICTs facilities offering internet, photocopying, printing, scanning, faxing, laminating and gaming services.

These centres were also intended to stimulate growth and job creation and serve as electronic libraries where people from remotely located areas could look for information pertaining to farming, education and health care among other areas.

The same facilities can now be upgraded to cater for the discerning population that now requires to go virtual in order to conduct business during lockdown.

By the nature of their businesses, informal traders know each other and the nature of trade they are engaged into. Equipped with that information, they can easily form cohorts within their areas, which they can use to create databases for sharing e-information to enhance their businesses. Already internet is bustling with e-commerce information that the informal sector can utilise to procure, market and sell their goods.

A cursory glance on the internet and information trickling in social groups’ points to an increase in online shopping of various goods from households’ items to big machinery.

Instead of waiting for the borders to open, cross borders can even order their products online.

That spike in e-commerce also calls for Internet service providers to review their pricing on data, to enable many people to access the Internet. Presently data pricing remains the biggest challenge towards accessibility of internet service in Zimbabwe.

A few weeks ago one of the leading mobile network operators (MNOs), Econet increased its SMS and data bundle tariffs in line with the cost of doing business.

In times like these, the private sector can chip in by funding internet host spots that communities can utilise, to ensure that the majority of people informally employed can still trade online.